Careless Love in Cities and Towns
by morningmagpie
Summary: Draco and Hermione haven't spoken since the end of the war. But when Draco shows up at the Auror's department looking for a job, they're thrown together again. Why's he there? And who's behind the murders of ex-members of Dumbledore's army?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I don't own these two; the lovely J.K. Rowling has them. I just love to mess around with them. The title is a mash up/scramble of two songs I love, by the band Camera Obscura.

**Author's Note**: I suppose that this story might sound a little bit like the other one I've posted, **From the Cottage in the Woods**, but I promise you that it's not!

* * *

**Careless Love in Cities and Towns**

His resignation sits beside itself in a grey-blue chair, trapped by the edges of the desk. It sits there and watches as he unfolds his clothes from around his arms and hangs the cloak on the hook, waiting for him to venture to the surface of it, to touch what he wishes to leave alone.

With a sigh, he moves to the desk and places his briefcase on the top, bottom first, then the side, gently lowered by the flick of his wrist. He settles into his new chair, his forearms bordering the case; he then slides it to the side without looking at it. He turns his head to gaze around the room, to stare at the faded maps on the walls, the pins pressed into the moving images of countries that look like sorrow; at the other unoccupied desk that lies like an open grave in the corner of the room; at the glowing ember of a cigarette butt in the ash tray, lying there like loneliness.

Potter clears his throat from the doorway. "She'll be here tomorrow. Some squabble with those rioting groups on the Welsh border has her away for a few."

Draco does not look up from his hands, where they lie like damaged wood on the desk, his black cuffs like ash on his skin. He cannot make eye contact with Potter, does not want to, does not wish to, does not care to see the way he studies him. So what if he wanted to work here? So what if he requested this office?

He finds his voice and without turning, he asks, because he wants, _needs_, to know. "When did she leave?"

But Potter has left and the door has already settled into its frame. Draco closes his eyes hard and sees light, and then opens them to stare at the embers of her cigarette, dropped carelessly into the ash tray with a pinch of her slim hands, perhaps minutes before he walked into the room, her limbs making a quick dash for the doorway when she hears his name in the hall, grabbing her cloak and disappearing. He can imagine her sitting across from him, holding the cigarette in between her fingers, taking a drag and smiling like a secret when she blew the smoke into the air around his face.

* * *

When he looks up from the ground, he notices that the entire Hall has gone silent. He sees her from across the room, sees her in the flash of light, her face lit up for a moment by it, her eyes gleaming with that green color. She is mute as well, her mouth falling in an arc, lips carefully parted. He's kissed those lips before. He's parted them with his own, seen them form words in her sleep, heard them whisper things into his ear.

She does not see him. He wants to call out to her, to hear her name again from his own mouth (how many weeks has it been since he's said it? How many months?). He wants to see her recognize him, for those lips to pull back into a smile and call back his own name. For her mouth to unconsciously linger around the syllables like it used to.

He stands on the cusp of his own happiness, stands so close to her that he could run several yards across the hall and convince her that he'd been looking, that he'd come searching, that he'd wanted to find her.

He looks up from the ground to see his side lose. He looks up to see her disappear in the mass of people who rush to Potter, their limbs connecting and their mouths opening to scream. He looks up to watch his parents softly sigh in relief, to see his mother lift her eyes to his and smile with foolish happiness. He looks up to see her crying, her brown eyes veiled with tears that she has forced herself to contain for months.

He looks up to see the last little bit of himself deteriorate.

* * *

He had once laughed with her about many things, before the war had completely driven them to pieces. They had once been able to talk about anything, during that one point in time when both of them fell prey to affection. They talked of things that both fascinated him and confused him and sometimes he can still hear her in his sleep, discussing her literature and her Muggle science.

He had once been to her house, because she still believed that he might not turn her in, because she still hoped for redemption and still looked for the best in people, and he'd taken advantage of that in the beginning. It was a house that looked down to a lake that glittered in the sun, and she had shown him her books, her fingers caressing the spines, her lips savoring the titles. She had shown him the places she had loved when she was a child. She had taken him down the trails that led to the lake that glittered in the sun. She had kissed him by the woods, forcefully, harshly, her lips biting against his, pleading with him, hoping desperately that her blind belief in him was not wrong. A few weeks later, he had given up the location of her house to the Death Eaters. He had sat at the table and repeated her address while she begged him not to in his head.

He'd traveled to Rosedale in advance, obliterating the inside of her home, burning the books and the pictures, until all he could hear was the sound of papers rustling in the wind and being caught in the fire. Sometimes he can still feel the heat on his face.

He had once considered finding her again during the war, warning her, telling her. He never did.

The only time he had seen her after they'd left each other was at the Manor, while his aunt tortured her on the floor. He dreamt of her screams for weeks. She only looked at him once while she lay there on the ground, her hair matted to her forehead and her eyes numb with pain. She was disappointed, he saw it on her face, and she was resigned; she knew that he would do this. He'd looked away.

When he looked up to see her in the hall, he was mostly checking to see if she was still alive.

* * *

**End Notes:** I know that it must seem strange to hear of Hermione smoking cigarettes (way OC) but it will be explained in the next few chapters. So stick around folks! Next chapter will be posted tomorrow (and I mean it this time)! As always, dears, please leave a review!


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note**: I think this is the first time I've been true to my word in posting up a chapter when I said I would (probably not the best thing to mention to you guys if I want you to keep coming back). This story will be switching up POV quite often, so we'll have dashes of Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco, Pansy, Blaise, Ginny, and many more. Thanks for reading!

* * *

**Chapter Two**

Harry comes in again , ruffles his hair with his hands while he tries to think of something to say. He's never spoken to Draco Malfoy in this sort of situation before, as a boss to his employee and he's not sure what to say to him. He knows that Ron's wandering around outside, wondering why Malfoy would have requested Hermione's office, why he would have asked or seemed to care why she wasn't here. They're both slightly uneasy about it, how Draco Malfoy had plopped himself in their office a few weeks ago and begged for a job. They couldn't really give it to him; he'd had no field training and as Ron had pointed out at the pub later that night, this sort of job would probably kill him, sniveling coward that he was. But Harry had seen something in Malfoy's face when he came to see them and he still wasn't quite sure what it meant. Why hadn't Malfoy insulted them? Where was the teenager who sneered and wrote derisive lyrics in his spare time? He wasn't there, both he and Ron saw that, and they couldn't understand just where that person had gone to. Was that why Harry had finally relented and given him the job? Was that why he agreed to let him train on the side, let him start out as a Profiler and work his way up?

Now he looks at Malfoy at his desk, already hunched over the papers that one of the secretary's had dropped off for him and Harry wonders again: What the hell was he doing here?

* * *

Everything started in the hallway during his Sixth Year, when the sky outside was dark and heavy with incoming rain, and the students were crossing across the stones with anxious, feverish steps. It began when he saw a shimmer of light falling like blissful ecstasy to the floor, ignorant of its obvious death on the ground. It started when he followed that light up past the ankle it had fallen next to, up the slender legs and around the waist, past the collarbone, barely visible from beneath the dark hair. He pulled his eyes over to the face to view her tiny mouth, the slim nose, the high cheekbones, the expressive, brown eyes.

He already knew Hermione Granger's face well, and over time, he would come to memorize the features. He would come to remember exactly how many freckles she had across her cheekbones and how her forehead would crinkle with anxiety. But, in the hallway, she was only an anomaly, a girl he'd once hated and then discovered with alarm that he now wanted to uncover the things that lay locked beneath her skin.

Draco remembered seeing her stoop to retrieve her bracelet before the others trampled it underneath their feet, that her eyes met with his for one uneven moment. He remembered Ginny Weasley's red hair and laughing mouth as she touched Hermione's shoulder, breaking her gaze from him. And then the two girls walked away together, disappearing into the crowd.

At one point in time, Blaise had thought himself in love with Ginny Weasley. It was foolish; Draco had explained this to him multiple times. What he hoped to do, mostly, was to protect him, to protect himself, to shield the both of them from the complicated wreckage of the relationships they both feared that they wanted.

Ginny Weasley had not been ignorant of Blaise's intentions toward her. There was something in her that had made her resentful; the fact that Harry Potter was beginning to distance himself from her had left its mark. She still loved him, probably always would, but she could still let her eyes linger on Blaise's from across the hall.

Draco saw them once, held tight against a wall, their silhouettes barely distinguishable in the dark. He heard them say the word love, hurried and concealed, as if terrified to have the other hear them say it. He'd wanted to laugh, for some sickening, unknown reason, perhaps because he wanted Ginny Weasley to be telling the truth. He wanted her to give up Potter entirely and run off with Blaise until the war ended. But he knew life didn't work that way.

It was only November of his Sixth Year when he saw Blaise and Ginny in the hallway. At that point, he did not expect anything to come out of his and Hermione's occasional glances across the hall, or that brief touch underneath a table. He chocked it up to mere curiosity, that both of them were puzzled by the drop in animosity, perhaps she more than him. He often saw the Trio's head bent together, whispering and furtively glancing at his place across the Great Hall. No, the last thing he'd expected at that point was for anything to happen at all.

Hermione had seen them too, her footsteps quiet behind him, her voice wrapping around his limbs: _Malfoy? What are you doing out here? _Her voice was confused and startled; she probably expected him to jinx her or them. He turned to her, and he was too tired to insult her, too overcome by the way her eyes slowly lit up the air around her face to point out a flaw in her character, and she didn't say anything to him, either. She glanced over at her friend in the embrace of his and he saw a flash of something like revulsion sweep over her face. Her hand was poised on her wand but she didn't do anything, merely sighed with a heavy shake of her head, hair bouncing across her shoulders. She said something that he can't quite remember anymore, something about Ginny's family and how her brothers wouldn't mind ripping Blaise from limb to limb.

Many months later, Blaise gave up Ginny's name and the address of her safehouse to save his mother. Draco remembers seeing her death in the papers, a picture of her face in the corner, a defiant smirk on her lips. He remembers that thing that Hermione had said in that dark archway, how her brothers would have killed Zabini if they'd been given the chance, and it makes him sick to think that they probably never knew, that they would never know what had happened so that their sister had to die.

* * *

Draco does not recall when his disgust for Hermione began turning into something like an academic interest. It had happened gradually during his Sixth Year, a small deluge of feelings and confusions and tangible pain. But when had it started? When had he finally understood that her blood was his blood, that she was somehow exactly like him? Had it really started with just her bracelet? Or had it been the way her eyes had found his from across the room, dark, questioning eyes that bit at skin without touching? Had it been because he could imagine her body wrapping around his so well? Had it been because he could feel her name slip off of his lips like gentle smoke?

He supposes that it had started when she dropped her bracelet in the hallway on her way to class, silver light falling to the floor in a final arch, twisting and tumbling to the ground. He had waited for unaware feet to trample it, for the light to become dull. But then she'd stopped to pick it up, glancing up at him, smiling as if she'd known that he would be watching her, leaving with Ginny as soon as she'd caught his eye.

Had she known that her bracelet would have led to events that had turned his world inside out? Had she dropped it there when she'd seen his face in the middle of that crowd? Had she smirked to the side and gently let out the clasp?

* * *

When he returns from the Ministry, he makes a cup of tea that tastes like inherent bitterness and now it lies forgotten on his dresser, steam floating above it. He crawls into his forest green sheets, he cannot force himself to move, to remember, but it seems that his mind is only capable of thinking about her. He wants to forget her. He wants to hate her.

But his body aches for her, the memory of it lying like her beside him, taking her shape and curling to the edge of the bed. He stares at the ceiling.

She comes back tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** So, if you haven't already guessed, the format of this story goes like this: First, there's a moment from the present in the opening few paragraphs, and then a flashback/memory thingamajig afterward. First two are from 1996, their Sixth Year.

**Chapter Three**

The prospect of seeing her terrifies him. He has not looked at her face since the moment he saw her from across the Great Hall, when she was lit up with that ghoulish green light. What is he possibly going to say to her? What will she think upon entering the office? Will she run again? Will she volunteer for every hellish assignment just so she won't have to look at him again, so she won't have to remember when they'd last spoken, how she'd known he'd give her away?

Draco sighs again before stepping into the Floo and considers that working with the Aurors is wrong, for he really doesn't give a damn if he helps them or not, nor does he want to hunt down people with whom he'd once dined and shared a house, because he never wants to see those people again. But he begged Potter for the job and because of this, he is stuck, because he won't let Potter best him in this.

As he walks into their office, her absence is palpable. There isn't a sign that she has even been in yet; no cloak hanging from the door, no papers stacked on the desk in preparation for the day. He goes to his desk, places his briefcase beside him on the floor and stares at the map's little countries, marvels at how small the world looks when it's tacked to an office wall.

Draco hears Potter outside mumbling something under his breath and before Draco even turns to look he knows that Potter is speaking to Granger. Angry murmurs follow Potter's speech; Draco's hands are clenched onto the underside of the desk.

"I see you've finally agreed to get a job."

He releases his breath and tries, tries so fucking hard, to assemble his face into one of indifference. He wonders if he should toss in another emotion; perhaps wear a mask with the possibility of old familiarity on it? He can see a hand painting civility onto his lips with thick strokes but they've already betrayed his supposed apathy by parting in surprise.

She is not how he remembered her. She's not painfully thin anymore; no longer do her bones protrude like small birds' wings. She's grown into her pert mouth and sharp nose, has even traced these things with makeup. Her hair is shorter, sleeker, and this bothers him, for if he could have chosen one thing about her that could have remained the same, he would have chosen her hair. Not because he'd suddenly fallen in love with that crazy mane of tangles, but because long ago, her hair had once glided over his chest when she was sleeping next to him, her body betraying her supposed indifference and curling against his.

"I thought the Ministry had you employed ages ago."

Draco finds his voice even though his mouth feels as though someone's force fed him cotton. "No, they just wanted my donations."

"Oh, of course," she says, sneering, and it isn't a look that becomes Hermione Granger's face. "Free from life's hardships because of your wealth. Glad to hear that the Ministry is still archaic."

Merlin, she hasn't changed mentally. Still the snarky intellect that cares too much about the rights of underdogs.

"Why are you here, Malfoy?"

He knows it's a desperate question; a question of whether or not she must now tell her friends that she slept with their enemy while they waited for her in the cold, of why he cannot leave it alone, of why he is trapping them in an office when they both agreed they wouldn't speak again.

"Well, Granger. A job's a job."

She glares at him. "You'll be lucky if you last a day."

Turning on her heel, she slams the door.

* * *

**October 1996**

He whispers her name in the middle of the darkness, hoping that the night will cover it up; it feels disgusting and liberating to say it, like trying out a curse word for the first time. Blaise stirs beside him. Draco shuts his curtains and murmurs Muffliato. Glancing down at his fingernails, Draco sees that he's bitten them down to the quick, that blood has crusted around the cuticles; he shakes his hands in disgust.

He saw Granger in the hall today. He saw her drop that bracelet and he knows that she did it on purpose, the manipulative bitch, knows that she would have figured out that his eyes were on her. She just wanted to see what he would do.

He wonders what she would look like in her knickers, if she'd be so prim if he had his mouth on her. It's no longer a question of blood; he just wants to see what he can make Hermione Granger do.

_But you've never had anyone_, comes that nagging little voice that erupted in his head over the summer. _Please her? You don't even know what you're doing. _It's a strange voice; it hisses.

He also saw her after class today. He'd left his book behind, because his mind was never fully engaged in classes anymore, and she'd been speaking with Slughorn about the properties of something – he hadn't taken the time to care. She turned when she heard him open the door and he sneered at her. _What, Mudblood? _And she replied with a sneer of her own, transforming the delicate features into something that resembled angry Veela. _I'm sorry, Death Eater, but I don't really care if you call me names. You'll be dead by the end of the year anyway._

He knew that she wasn't thinking it, but Merlin, he heard the hissing voice slither the words into his head.

* * *

**November 1996**

As of now, they have not met. Not properly, at least. Draco does not know anything about Granger nor does she know the first proper thing about him. Their only contact has been the exchange of looks in the hallways, the occasional unplanned touch as they pass Potions ingredients, a hasty jump when their fingers collide.

Their Prefect schedules land them in the same hallway and she comes across him while he's berating a First Year into fits of hysteria for being out after hours.

"For God's sake, Malfoy, take points and be done with it."

The boy, who's been whimpering into his hands, sees his escape and sprints, Draco calling out his loss of ten points to his retreating back.

"I fucking hate First Years," he grumbles, as though he were speaking to Pansy.

"Who doesn't?" She smiles. "But you don't need to scream at them to have your point made." She turns to leave; "Oh, nice work on only deducting ten. I'd figured you'd take fifty."

Before he even registers what he's doing, he's grabs a hold of that maddening hair and forces her head toward his, slamming his mouth onto hers. She moans, he suspects, before she has a chance to check it, but then she yanks her face back and smacks him across his cheek, just like Third Year, and says, "Don't you dare touch me again, Malfoy."

They have not met properly, and he suspects that they will not for a very long time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **I'm sure you guys saw the summary change and this story is going to take a turn next chapter. I know that this hasn't seemed like a mystery so far, but now it's going to spin off into mystery genre! There will still be some flashbacks, because that sets up the whole Draco/Hermione doomed romance that they had during the war. And yep, the two stories, both in the past and the present, link together. There's a reason those flashbacks are there!

* * *

**Chapter Four  
**

Hermione can barely breathe, so close is his proximity to her. It's his usual scent permeating her nostrils, that heady smell of sandalwood and leather and it's so fucking masculine that she's close to losing her mind. She'd never understood how anyone as spineless as Malfoy got away with smelling that like.

They've, thankfully, been assigned to go out into the field today. Most of the time, Hermione's confined to her desk, reading up on recent activities and people and trying to determine which type of criminal would have committed a certain type of crime. But now, the very thought of being confined into a room with Malfoy is enough to wish for a very sound smack across the face.

So, along with Harry and Ron, they Apparate out to a small village in Ireland. Hermione touches ground with even footing; glancing over at Ron she notices that he stumbles a bit before gaining his footing. She turns away and says to Harry, "Is there any reason that Malfoy and I are necessary today?"

She catches Harry's smirk and due to her current mood, she's quite tempted to hex it off his face. "I know you love your bookwork, Hermione, but this is a pretty important case. You'll see why." His face becomes grim and he pulls out his wand.

Huffing, Hermione sets off after him, Ron and Draco trailing behind. The salt air whips through her hair and clears her head. She can handle being near him. Of course she can. Her body will be treacherous; it will betray her mind and long for his, but she's level-headed. Perhaps they might even move on from what happened. Inwardly, Hermione laughs at her stupidity. She's certain that she and Malfoy are not going to be anything other than civil colleagues.

The four arrive at the small house. Instantly, Hermione recognizes that whoever was here was more aggressive than others she's seen recently. The windows have been broken; the door squeaks as it swings back and forth on its hinges; there's a horrible smell of blood from all the way outside. Looking up, she notices the thatched roof is singed and smoking.

"Who wants to go in first?" asks Ron, looking at the mangled garden to his left.

"There's no one in there, you git. We all go," Hermione responds, her temper flaring. She sees Draco smirk out of the corner of her eye.

Inside, it smells even worse, for the scent of blood and vomit is concentrated and cloying. Hermione pulls out a handkerchief and places it over her nose and mouth, willing herself not to gag. She can see the body in the corner of the room, but she doesn't want to move toward it. Resisting the urge to push Malfoy into the mess, she turns to Harry, who is already making his way over.

Slowly, the rest follow. Hermione concentrates on a spot of wall, covered in sick; whoever had done this had tortured their victim.

"Hermione," comes Harry's voice from below her. She looks down and nearly reels back from the shock.

It's Seamus Finnegan, his throat split open, his eyes bulging. His limbs are contorted into horrible positions and his clothes are so soaked with blood they are almost black.

"Look at his cheek," Harry says, his voice unreadable.

Hermione has to bend down to make it out but then she sees it, the heavy and sloppy slashes carved into his face: DA.

* * *

**December 1996**

It's been a month since he's kissed Hermione Granger. She avoids him mostly, a feat that is not difficult given that they hardly speak anyway. If she sees him coming around the corner, she'll turn on her heel and huff off in the opposite direction. She's often accompanied by Potter, who looks puzzled by her abrupt change in direction. Rarely does Draco see her with Weasley, though; ever since he'd attached himself to Lavender Brown, Granger hadn't wanted anything to do with him.

This thought makes him laugh when his forehead is against the cool tiles of the bathroom sink, when he's wracking his brain for an idea and all he can think about is Weasley and Granger. Does she cry whenever she sees him with her? It doesn't seem much like Granger to do so, but he doesn't really know anything about her, so maybe she does. Maybe that's the only thing that's bothering her as she spends her days reading in the library, maybe that's all she and Potter talk about anymore.

Draco considers ignoring her as well, for it would be the proper thing to do. There's no point in wasting time considering what it might be like to kiss her again, what it might feel like to have her kiss him back, because he knows that he hasn't got a chance in hell. He won't touch her again and the thought won't even enter her head to touch him.

As the month passes, as he watches the lake's waves churn up and down with storms, he begins to wonder if she might be able to help him. He doesn't think that he wants to join the Order, Merlin no; but what if he could trick her into helping him with the Vanishing Cabinet? Asked her for her advice, pretended it was homework?

During the last week before Christmas, he sees her again in the hallway. She's by herself, carrying an armful of books and wearing a scowl that makes him think that's she fought with Weasley again. If she notices him, she feigns ignorance and continues past, mad hair tumbling across her sweater. But he cannot let her walk past. He cannot let her walk past because he has to leave Hogwarts in a few days and return to a home that no longer feels like anything other than a prison. He has to kill a man by the end of this year and everything's he done so far has only strengthened his belief that he will fail. He has a sudden attraction for her, the Mudblood who could probably save the whole fucking world if she wanted to. So he cannot let Granger go, not because he cares for her, not yet anyway, but because she may be his only hope.

He grabs her arm and the books tumble from her arms, spilling down at her feet, spines cracking and pages ripping; he hears her curse as she throws her hands up in exasperation. She turns to him and opens that mouth, the one he's heard smacking open and shut for the past six years, and all he can think to do is place his mouth over it.

So he kisses her again in the hallway in the middle of December, when the moonlight tumbles across the hallway and splashes the walls, when the wind outside howls in protest. For some reason that he will never come to learn, she kisses him back. She places her hands at the base of his neck and moans into his mouth, sighing this soft little thing of defeat, as though she's known for the past few weeks that this was inevitable. And he thinks that it must have been, for there is no other explanation for this, no other explanation other than the possibility of a higher power forcing them into it. He doesn't even consider the possibility of loving her nor does he imagine that she loves him. In all honesty, he hates her, hates her even as he kisses her, would much rather kill her than kiss her again.

She pulls away; her fingers slide down his shoulder blades and he shivers. He catches the smile that curves her lips.

"Malfoy?"

Perhaps he kisses her because by the end of the year he will be dead. Maybe that's too maudlin for him, too plebian, but he supposes it could be true. Why not kiss a semi-attractive girl when one knows that one will probably be dead before the consequences are of importance? Perhaps he wants to know what his father used to decry: examine the filth from every angle. Weren't Mudbloods supposed to taste dirty? But he only tastes mint and something like the apple cider he'd had as a child, a taste that years later he will still be able to recall.

At this point in time, however, he is probably kissing her because he wants help and Granger is the closest thing he has. He can use her, he knows he can, properly turn her intelligence into cunning and hurl it at their defenses while they have their eyes closed. Granger is useful, how none of the Death Eaters thought about this he'll never know, but she will help him. And he knows it the way he knows about his own mortality and possibly hers: that he will be dead by the end of the year and because of this, so may she.

So he answers her and he faintly hears her question, but it doesn't matter anymore. He has his solution.


End file.
